Savitribai Phule: India's First Female Teacher, Poet, and Social Reformer

Priya Khaitan
2 days ago
2 min read

Updated: 22 hours ago

Overview

Savitribai Phule (3 January 1831 – 10 March 1897) is remembered as India's first female teacher: she co-founded the country's first school for girls in 1848, endured years of physical hostility for it, and eventually died treating patients during a plague epidemic she chose to fight rather than flee.

Timeline

1831 — Born in Naigaon, Satara district, Maharashtra
c. 1840 — Married to Jyotirao Phule at around age nine or ten
1848 — Co-founds India's first school for girls at Bhide Wada, Pune
1849 — Asked to leave the family home over her work with lower castes
1851 — Phules running three schools serving 150+ girls
1854 — Publishes her first poetry collection, Kavya Phule
1863 — Helps run a home sheltering pregnant widows to prevent infanticide
1873 — Co-founds the Satyashodhak Samaj with Jyotirao
1892 — Publishes second poetry collection, Bavan Kashi Subodh Ratnakar
1897 — Dies of plague contracted while treating patients, aged 66

Early Life

Born to a farming family in Naigaon, Savitribai arrived at her marriage to Jyotirao Phule unable to read — ordinary for a girl of her time and caste. What was extraordinary was what happened next: her husband taught her at home himself, then arranged formal teacher training for her in Pune and Ahmednagar. It was the foundation for a partnership that would reshape Indian education.

Achievements

Co-founded India's first school for girls (Bhide Wada, Pune, 1848), eventually growing to 18 schools across the Poona region
Introduced student stipends to reduce dropout rates — recognizing that poverty, not just prejudice, kept girls out of school
Co-founded the Satyashodhak Samaj (1873), fighting caste discrimination and the dowry system
Published two poetry collections using verse to argue for education and equality
Installed a public well at her own home so Dalits could access clean water

Challenges

Savitribai was verbally abused and pelted with stones, mud, and dung on her daily walk to school, and carried a spare sari specifically to change into once she arrived. In 1849, her own father-in-law demanded she and Jyotirao leave the family home over their work with marginalized communities. She persisted for nearly five decades against this hostility, ultimately dying in service — she contracted the plague while personally treating an infected patient in the 1897 Pune epidemic.

Legacy

Savitribai Phule is honored today as the foundational figure of women's education in India. Maharashtra observes her birthday, 3 January, as Balika Din (Girl Child Day), and the University of Pune was renamed Savitribai Phule Pune University in 2015 in her honor.

Savitribai and Jyotirao's response to hostility was not retreat but expansion — by 1851, they were running three schools serving more than 150 girls, and eventually 18 schools across the Poona region.

Related Women in This Series

Explore more pioneering Indian women: Anandibai Joshi (first Indian woman to earn a medical degree abroad) and Aruna Asaf Ali (hoisted the flag that launched the Quit India Movement) — part of our full Women in Indian History collection.